The
MTS200 Series MPEG Test Systems provide innovative solutions to meet
the challenges of designing and testing MPEG, DVB, and ATSC systems.
The MTS200 Series products are based on an industry-standard computing
platform that provides flexible and expandable test capabilities.
The MTS200 Series provides three primary capabilities: real-time analysis,
deferred-time analysis, and custom transport stream creation and generation.

Real-Time Analysis

The MTS200 Series' real-time analysis
capabilities enable you to perform extensive protocol analysis in
real-time. All tests conform to MPEG, ETR290 recommendations and ATSC
standards so you can verify that your designs meet established conformance
criteria.

In addition, the MTS200 Series enables you to vary
test parameters from established specifications so you can define
and test the limits of your design or established system. You have
control over the interval of each table, the timing relationship between
related tables, as well as PCR interval and precision measurements.

To ease the analysis of test results, the MTS200 Series uses
color in its various displays to indicate the status of each element
under test within the transport stream. Green indicates that the element
under test passes; Red indicates that there is a current error; and
Orange indicates that an error has occurred but is no longer present.
The Real-Time Analyzer offers message logging that can be viewed either
from the master log or on an individual PID basis.

A statistical
view (see Figure 1) provides a status-at-a-glance display of the overall
bandwidth and efficiency of the transport stream under test. Graphic
and dynamic displays show the data rates, percentage of use, and global
data information for each program, PID, and the transport stream.

PCR Analysis

PCR Analysis with frequency offset and drift information (see
Figure 2) are displayed in real-time. The real-time analyzer enables
you to use MPEG, DVB, or ATSC limits, or you can define your own.
Once the limits have been defined, the system begins testing to that
limit. Errors are graphically displayed in red and added to the message
log with time of day and date information.

The real-time system
also enables you to display multiple PCR views simultaneously to assist
in identifying multiplexer or encoder problems.

Figure 2 - PCR analysis view screen.

Histograms for All Timing Graphs

The PCR, PTS/DTS, and section
rate analysis displays now include histograms. An example histogram
can be seen in Figure 2.

PID Allocation

The PID Allocation
view (see Figure 3) enables you to view all PIDs associated with either
PSI/SI/PSIP or program tables and monitor their rates. High and low
limits can be set to alert the user with error messages when these
limits have been exceeded. This is especially important when monitoring
the output of a statistical multiplexer and trying to identify a program
that may be using too much bandwidth.

Figure 3 - PID-Allocation
screen.

DVB Measurement Display

DVB
ETR290 measurements can be monitored using two display types. The
first display type is used strictly for monitoring while the second
display type is a detailed view. Both views indicate the three priorities
of testing per ETR290 recommendation.

DVB-T for SFN (Single
Frequency Network)

Mega-Frame Initialization Packets (MIP),
specified in the DVB TS 101 191 document, can be monitored using either
the Real-Time or Deferred-Time Analysis programs. MIP's carry information
about the type of transmission that will be used to broadcast the
transport stream. It is used to synchronize and to configure DVB-T
transmitters (SFN adapters) using GPS-based time stamping.

IP Data Monitoring

Due to the increase in demand on accessing
Internet services through cable and satellite communications, IP data
monitoring has become an important issue. The MTS200 Real-Time Analyzer
performs IP monitoring with detailed viewing of SI-DAT 360 (DVB Data
Broadcasting) tables, syntactic control of the SI-DAT tables with
error reporting, and the ability to monitor data flow of the broadcast
session.

Analyses performed are as follows:

Intra-PSI
analysis

Inter SI/PSI analysis (data broadcast descriptors)

Consistence of data carousal

TCP/IP session monitoring

Several new tables are now available within the hierarchical
display. Digital Storage Media Command and Control (DSM-CC) from ISO/IEC
13818-6 defines the following types: Multiprotocol encapsulation,
U-N messages, and Stream descriptors. SI-DAT defines the following
tables: 1-layer Data carousel, Multiprotocol encapsulation, 2-layer
Data carousel, Data Piping, and Data Streaming. Figure 4 shows multiple
DSM-CC elements along with their IP traffic sessions.

Figure 4 - IP Data Monitoring.

User-Definable
Parameters

The following parameters are user-definable:

Hardware - Set the number of synchronization bytes before
the system begins testing or synchronization is lost. Set the electrical
input and output configuration of the Real-Time Analyzer.

Private Syntax Table Editor

This program
allows the user to describe the syntax of a private table. You can
then use the table for testing the syntax of the incoming transport
stream, validating the private table information.

Trigger/Capture

Intermittent problems are difficult to detect and capture. The
MTS215 MPEG Test System addresses this by incorporating a trigger/capture
function (see Figure 5) that enables you to specify an error or event
to be monitored, start the process, and walk away. When the designated
error or event occurs, the system automatically captures the event
so that it can be analyzed at a later time. The system can capture
a minimum of 35 minutes of data running at 60 Mbps.

Figure 5 - Data Storage Trigger/Capture configuration display.

Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)

If you are using the MTS200 Series Real-Time Analyzer in an operational
network environment you can take advantage of the SNMP agent that
is a part of the real-time system. This will allow you to control
or capture analysis results from a remote location.

Deferred
Time Analysis

The MTS200 Series' Deferred-Time Analysis capabilities
provide four types of displays or views:

Hierarchical
- Displays the structure of the transport stream and identifies all
of the components.

Interpreted - Works as a tutorial on the
MPEG structure. Double clicking on any of the fields in the display
produces a definition of that field from the MPEG standard.

All of these
tests can be performed automatically. You also have control of the
buffer size in each of the T-STD buffers.

MPEG Audio and Video
Stream Analysis (Option ES)

MPEG audio and video elementary
stream analysis is also possible with the MTS210 and MTS215 systems.
These programs allow you to perform syntax and semantic analysis of
both audio and video elementary streams (see Figures 6 and 7).

Both syntactic and semantic (coherence between
all components in the stream) analysis are available. An extraction
routine allows the user to select and save either the whole stream
or a part of the stream.

The MPEG Audio Stream Analyzer analyzes
MPEG Audio Layer I and II specification streams. It allows analysis
of an MPEG audio stream at different levels as well as the ability
to decode them.

The audio analyzer provides the following levels
of analysis:

Audio Header (AH)

Audio Allocation
Table (AAT)

Scalefactor Table (SCF)

Scalefactor
Selection Information (SCFSI)

Sample Table (SPL)

Ancillary Data (AD)

At each of these levels, syntactic,
semantic, and CRC analysis can be performed. An extraction routine
allows the user to select and save either the whole stream or a part
of the stream. The decoded stream can be saved in a WAV file format.

AC-3™ Analysis (Option AC)

The technology on which Dolby
Digital sound is based is Dolby AC-3, a proprietary audio coding technique
Dolby Laboratories developed for storing and transmitting multiple
channels of digital sound more efficiently. The analysis of Dolby
AC-3 streams can be performed on MPEG-2 transport streams, program
streams, packetized elementary streams (PES), as well as elementary
streams. Analysis functions include CRC checking, syntactic analysis,
and semantic analysis. Graphs can be plotted for the following fields
to observe trends in these values over different sections of the stream:

Dialog normalization

Heavy compression

Dynamic range

The interpreted display shows the actual
data along with each parameter field name. Double-clicking on the
field name produces a definition of that field as defined by the AC-3
standard. Figure 8 shows the Dolby AC-3 analysis application along
with two characteristics views. All or part of an AC-3 stream can
be saved on a frame or time basis.

Figure 8 - The Dolby
AC-3 analysis application with two Main Characteristics displays.

Custom Transport Stream Generation

The MTS200
Series' generation capabilities allow you to create custom transport
streams with complete control over many of the parameters. User-definable
parameters include:

Timing offsets

Data rates

PES packet size

Jitter and channel coding

DVB SI table information

ATSC PSIP Table information (Terrestrial
or Cable)

These parameters can be easily modified using
the included DVB or ATSC Table Editor or Jitter Programs.

Using
a "known good" transport stream, you can test performance of the entire
system or an individual component under ideal conditions. Because
you have control over the user-definable parameters, you can create
a custom transport stream with variations to stress performance at
or near operational limits. For example, Figures 9a and 9b show custom
transport stream creation.

CD-ROMs with elementary streams
are included with all MTS200 Series systems having generation capability.
The video elementary streams contain both motion sequences and traditional
television test patterns. The STRM102 product is included and contains
MPEG video elements from the Sarnoff Corporation for independent certification
of MPEG interoperability. These "known good" MPEG streams can be used
as ideal test signals or they can be used as the basis for creating
your own MPEG transport streams.

Real-Time
Multiplexing (Option OM)

The purpose of the Real-Time Multiplexing
application is to provide an easy way to multiplex MPEG-2 Transport
Streams in real time. The heart of the application is a transport
packet multiplexer task that can quickly process many input streams
and outputs a valid MPEG-2 stream. The input transport streams can
represent a single-program transport stream (SPTS) or multiprogram
transport streams (MPTS), elementary streams, private data, PSI tables,
DVB-SI tables, or ATSC-PSIP tables.

The main characteristics
are as follows:

Dynamic management of MPEG2 PSI, DVB
SI, and ATSC PSIP tables.

SPTS and MPTS file multiplexing.

Allocation and dynamic filtering of PIDs.

Restamping
of PCRs.

Figure 10 - Real-Time
Multiplexing screen.

I/O for Acquisition and
Generation

The MTS200 Series provides rear-panel I/O connectors
for external acquisition and generation. The exact connector configuration
depends upon the system ordered.

SMPTE 310M and DVB SSI Adapter
(Option SS)

The Synchronous Serial Interface (SSI) adapter
accepts MPEG-2 transport streams at 19.39 and 38.78 Mbps meeting the
SMPTE 310M standard. The SSI adapter will also accept SSI streams
that meet the DVB standard over a frequency range of 10 Mbps to 50 Mbps.
An automatic detection circuit allows the adapter to act as either
an input or output device.

Modular System Design

The
MTS200 Series is based on a modular design so you can purchase only
the capabilities you need now. Later, you can purchase field upgrades
to expand the functionality of your system as your needs change or
as new tests and technologies emerge. The MTS200 Series is based on
Windows NTTM and runs on a high-end PC platform for maximum flexibility
and upgradeability. The MTS200 Series consists of the following systems:

MTS205 Real-Time Analysis System. Designed for fast, time-critical
system analysis.